


A Simple Twist of Fate

by dreadwulf



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Prompt: Mutual Pining, prompt: hurt brienne / panicked Jaime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28328907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadwulf/pseuds/dreadwulf
Summary: Jaime Lannister allowed Brienne of Tarth and her squire to enter Riverrun in the middle of a siege. When the deadline passed and she did not emerge with the Blackfish, Jaime used Edmure to get into the castle. But this time, Brienne didn't escape. Now, with Brienne's fate uncertain, Jaime struggles with his choices.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 79
Kudos: 187
Collections: JB Festive Festival Exchange 2020





	1. Reckoning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NaomiGnome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaomiGnome/gifts).



> So. I had something else planned for the festive exchange, but very late in the game I decided what I had was too dark for a holiday exchange. We'll get to that one some other time.
> 
> Instead I'm using a concept I've been sitting on for a while, and flying a little by the seat of my pants. NaomiGnome, I hope you will like it. I may not have the entire story finished within the proper time, but it will be well on its way.

Jaime Lannister is standing on the battlements outside Riverrun.

Night is falling, and quiet has settled over the castle since the fighting ceased.

He is standing outside looking out over the water in the advancing twilight and waiting for a report.

He is rigid beneath his armor, his fingers tingling oddly. Both the real ones, and the ones that aren’t there anymore.

It seems very important to be still. All of his concentration is devoted to not thinking about the thing that he isn’t thinking about, and it is difficult. 

They used Edmure’s ruse to get into the Keep. The Tully men were supposed to surrender peacefully. The Blackfish did not agree. When the fighting broke out he ordered his best Lannister captains to squash their small resistance. He knew when he did it what the likely outcome would be. She would fight with them, of course. To the last.

He told them to take prisoners wherever they could. To seek the Blackfish and take the rest alive. By the time he himself got inside, he has word that the fighting is over. They are counting the dead now.

Since that moment he has said very little. There was something very like: “Bring me your report. What became of the Blackfish and his men. How many casualties.” Then he added on to the end, calculated to sound like an afterthought: “If there is a woman amongst the fighting men, bring her to me.”

Now he stands very still and waits.

Usually when he is distressed he tries to think of Cersei, but just now, that only makes him more anxious, for some reason. So he tries to think of nothing. Listens to the sound of the water lapping against the castle walls, and the distant murmur of soldiers moving into the Keep. They are reassuring sounds. Usually.

The last colors of sunset have vanished completely before he is joined on the balcony by one of his lieutenants. 

“My Lord.”

Jaime inhales deeply, and turns with deliberate slowness.

“The Blackfish?” he inquires in a flat tone.

“He fell, my lord. He fought seven men at once - it was astonishing, I’m told. Three men had to strike him to bring him down, and he took the other four with him.”

“I would expect no less,” he says faintly. “And the others?”

“Surrendered, ser. After the Blackfish went down they had little heart for a fight.” 

He nods. That makes sense. 

“We suffered few losses aside from that. Some Tullys went down.”

“Were there any women among them?” 

“Possibly, Milord. Most who put up resistance were taken to the cells.”

Ah yes, the cells. He knows the prison at Riverrun well. It would be amusing to meet her again there, on the other side of the bars. He smirks at the thought, already imagining what he will say. 

The Lieutenant takes this as a dismissal, and salutes. 

Jaime turns back to the water, relaxing a little. He had hoped to take Riverrun without any bloodshed, but all in all, it is the ideal outcome. No extended siege, no huge loss of forces. He will be ready to move on long before he anticipated. 

He will, of course, have to figure out what to do with Brienne and Podrick if they are sitting in a cell. If they have any sense, they obeyed Edmure’s order to stand down, rather than draw arms with the Blackfish. Then he will not have to justify letting them go. But, he knows, a small band of Tully rebels protecting their ancestral home against an overwhelming force will be difficult for her to resist. She does love a lost cause.

In the midst of this line of thought, he spies in the rising moonlight a shape on the water. He gasps a little when he sees it. It is headed downstream, away from the Keep, though how anything had gotten out onto the water he doesn’t know. He thought they had blocked every exit.

The boat is some distance out, too far to pursue. But there is clearly a figure in the boat, rowing steadily away. 

Jaime takes a deep breath of the evening air and looks closely. At this distance he cannot at first make out the identity of the person in the boat. He can see the glint of armor and bulky shoulders working the oars.

But then he frowns. The hair is all wrong, at least for the person he is looking for. 

“Milord?” Another one of his lieutenants approaches.

He turns away from the water quickly, not wanting to draw their attention. “Yes.”

“Your man Bronn reports. He says he has located the squire. Podrick Payne?”

Jaime’s head jerks around and looks again at the boat. 

Unmistakably, the moonlight glints off the bald forehead of a man. 

The Blackfish, he is suddenly sure. Rowing out to Sansa. 

The Lannister soldier takes on a quizzical tone. “He says you should come right away. Ser?” 

He can’t move. He’s rooted to the spot somehow. _He fell, ser. He fought seven men at once._

“My lord?”

_Three men had to strike her to bring her down._

“Bring him to the great hall,” someone says. It sounds like him.

The whole world seems to shiver around him. Like it has taken a mortal wound.

He goes blank after that. A terrible calm comes over him, one that leaves him numb to all feeling. He will keep performing his duty but the greater part of him is gone away.

When he blinks and looks around it’s not clear how much time has passed, but several soldiers are looking at him and whispering.

He does not know what will come out of his mouth if he opens it now, so he doesn’t. He simply wills himself, with great effort, to walk inside.


	2. Reproach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime searches the castle to learn what became of Brienne after she was struck down in battle, while fighting off rising panic and terrible guilt.

Jaime strides through the halls of Riverrun at a steady, rapid rhythm. The Keep passes him in a colorless blur. His armor hangs heavy on his shoulders. 

Brienne’s voice echoes in his ears. Something from yesterday. The last thing she had said to him.

_Should I fail to persuade the Blackfish to surrender, and if you attack the castle, honor compels me to fight for Sansa’s kin._

Of course it does. That’s the honorable cause, isn’t it? The knight's cause. He knew it then, and he knows it now. It’s just the nagging, irritating kind of knowledge that he has to ignore in order to do what has to be done. 

Now he will have to live with the consequences.

“Ser!” Podrick jumps to his feet when Jaime walks into the Great Hall. 

“Where is your lady?” he says rather than hello. His voice still seems to be coming from somewhere far away. That’s a neat trick.

All the pieces of him are disconnected. His body, his thoughts, his speech. He is like a puppet at a mummer’s show, and he is not holding the strings.

He sees that Pod’s eyes are red, his face swollen.

“Ser, I don’t know Ser. They took her away.” 

_Where did they take her? On her feet or on her back? Was she awake? Did they stab her? Did she bleed?_ He observes these thoughts parading by.

“Who?” his voice asks.

“I don’t know Ser. Soldiers.”

Bronn is here too. He looks solemn; a most un-Bronn-like expression. He looks between Pod and Jaime as though either one of them might do something unthinkable at any moment, such as burst into tears. “A real shame, that is. She was a right spectacular woman.”

 _Was._ Jaime’s hand twitches into a fist.

But his voice still sounds very calm. “Tell me what happened.”

Podrick pulls himself together, takes several deep breaths. 

“The Blackfish told us to escape in the little boat. He was going to go down fighting, he said. But milady said, she said no one was going down. She hit him over the head and put him in the boat. The current took him out. She tried to tell the Blackfish’s men that you would take the keep peacefully, that there was no need to needlessly fight. But they didn’t believe her. When the fighting broke out the Tullys were outnumbered, they were going to be slaughtered. She put on the Blackfish helm, tried to help them. But there were too many. The soldiers all came straight at her. I tried to help. But they put a sword through her, and… she wouldn’t go down, Ser, and I couldn’t get to her, and…”

Pod trails off miserably, and tears run down his cheeks. He sits down hard on a bench, head bent.

_I gave the order. I told them to attack the Blackfish specifically. And she took his helm and sent him away. I’ve killed her._

There is a flinch of feeling at that, distantly. It’s only the shadow of something very large and dangerous, and if it catches him, it will crush him beneath its weight.

He puts that away again. Things he must do first. _Where is her sword? She will want her sword. I should bring it to her._

He’s speaking again. Only the barest of words; he’s not giving them any thought. His brain and his speech have come entirely disconnected. He listens with interest to learn what he is saying.

“We will find her. Come along, Podrick. You --” Bronn looks up, “find me the lady’s sword, with the lion pommel.”

Oddly subdued, Bronn doesn’t even make a joke about it. He just nods and scarpers off, probably glad to leave Jaime with Brienne’s weeping squire. 

Jaime leads the lad outside the Keep. They walk together in silent dismay. They will check the worst possibility first. It seems the likeliest, and he must know as quickly as possible. The bodies from the skirmish they are carting to the river’s edge, for river burial according to the Tully tradition. 

_Brienne’s no Tully. What do they do on Tarth? They are seafaring people, perhaps burial at sea? Ask Podrick._

His thoughts are in no way connected to his mouth just then; he cannot ask him.

They catch them just crossing the bridge and Jaime orders them to stop for inspection.

The cart is a bloody mess, with bodies and spare limbs strewn haphazardly within. The cart tips, and several bodies fall out onto the ground, for inspection. Podrick flinches and goes grey, and Jaime motions for him to stay back. He’s seen enough tonight, the poor lad.

Jaime turns over the bodies carefully, seeking their faces. A first, a second, a third. All men. None of them are Brienne. 

“The woman’s over here,” someone says, peering into the bloody cart.

Podrick gets to that one first, darting to the side of the cart. He sighs with evident relief over this last body. “It’s not her,” he says, even before he has seen her face. “She’s too small.”

“Good,” Jaime says hollowly, rising back up to his feet. It is that. Good. But they still don’t know where she is, and she could be dead someplace else. They will have to keep looking. He will have to keep going until they find her. 

Podrick stops what he’s doing and stares. “Are you all right, Ser? You look --” 

“Fine,” he says stiffly, and sets off walking back inside the Keep, the squire scrambling to keep up with him.

The walk back inside is much shorter, or at least he sees less of it. Various faces pop up and look at him expectantly, and he gives them a stern nod. This seems to work, and they mostly leave him alone and go about their business. They have captured the Keep, but they will still be flushing out holdouts and removing weapons, and then they have to move the camp inside. They will take down the tent where he had last seen and talked to Brienne and she asked him to let her inside the siege line. Where she had looked at him with such… he doesn’t know what. Such feeling.

“Milord,” Podrick says beside him. He has a hand on Jaime’s arm. 

Now he is standing outside a makeshift infirmary. Inside a maester is tending to the injured, while interspersed with the survivors are several bodies, each covered in a sheet. 

Ever a squire, Podrick is trying his best to be helpful. “Shall I go inside and look first?”

_He is being kind. Did he learn that from Brienne? I will have to have him taken care of, if..._

“All right,” he tells the young man. 

He leans against the stone wall and closes his eyes a moment.

What had he been thinking? Letting Brienne inside enemy lines in the middle of a siege? He knew that she would join the fighting if his scheme with Edmure hadn’t worked. He had made damned sure he had a way in, but what if he hadn’t? And those fools inside had fought anyway. He should have told her no. She would have been disappointed in him, surely, but everyone is disappointed in him. He could have survived that.

“Ser!”

Inside, Podrick is gesturing to him wildly. Beckoning him to come. Still in a fog, he follows.

He can see it’s her from well away, by the way her feet hang over the edge of the pallet. 

Brienne is lying in a bed, surrounded by gore. Blood and viscera and other signs of surgery. Her midsection is held together with bandages. She’s been slashed across the face; the Maester is bent over her to sew her cheek back together. She will be held together with thread and cloth where steel has torn her apart.

His stomach turns. He has imagined her injured before, out there somewhere in the world, but to see it is so much worse. 

She’s so still. She doesn’t look alive, she is so still. He has never seen her like this. She should be glaring him down for what he’s done. Instead he is looking at her blood, at the bits of her stained in the bed, and she isn’t looking anywhere at all.

_I gave the order. This is my doing._

“Tell me if she dies,” he hears himself say, and leaves the room. 

Things fade in and out of significance, after that. 

Bronn finds him in a passageway. He has Oathkeeper, without its scabbard. Even bloodstained, the blade still shines. He had found it in the chamber where Brienne had fallen, gathered up with the other weapons.

The sellsword turns the sword this way and that, appraisingly. “This is a right beautiful blade, Lannister. It could be worth as much as a castle, you know…?”

“No, Bronn.” He takes the blade from him, holds it tightly in his hand. 

“If no one’s using it?” Pushing his luck, as always.

“It stays with Brienne,” he tells him firmly. They will give it to the river, come to that.

He takes Oathkeeper to his quarters. It’s late. He lies on the bed and he cannot sleep a wink. He sees her whenever he closes his eyes. Bloody in the bed, standing in his tent. Holding out her sword to him. He gets up and paces the room. Sits in a chair for a time. Holds Oathkeeper. Cleans away the blood. Gets up and paces some more. Each time he hears footsteps approach he comes to a stop and braces himself for it to be a messenger to tell him she is dead. Each time the footsteps pass him by, and he paces the room again.

The sun rises.

There is still much to do. He had an agreement with Lord Edmure, even if it did not go entirely to plan, and Jaime makes the arrangements. The riverlord’s wife and infant son will join him at Casterly Rock, and he sees that they will be comfortable. He sends messengers to the countryside to spread the word that Riverrun has surrendered peacefully, and Tully bannermen will be allowed to return to their homes. This successfully occupies the morning.

At mid-day he refuses a meal and ventures into the infirmary again. “What news?”

No news. No better, no worse. He takes in the sight of her in the bed, unnaturally still, smaller somehow. Her already pale skin is nearly translucent, shining with sweat. Her breath, when he steps near enough to hear it, is shallow and quick. He does not trouble her, she will not know he’s there. She’s fighting another battle just now. 

He leaves, and returns to his duties. 

Hours drag by. No one brings him any word.

In his quarters, too weary to pace, he sits and stares at a wall.

The sun rises.

Jaime goes to the room which is now his office and he stares at a different wall for a while. The letters on his papers swirl and jumble together the way they do when he is very tired. He rubs his eyes and looks again. This letter, he realizes slowly, was written on his behalf, reporting to the Crown their victory at Riverrun. It does not mention Edmure’s assistance, which is probably wise. The scribe wouldn’t have known about that anyway. He slowly applies a crooked signature, effortfully, left-handed. Then he seals it up, and sets it aside.

Then he sets all the papers aside. He cannot concentrate. 

The candleflame dances in his vision awhile, and he can hear distantly the sound of rain. That occupies him awhile, the rain against the water, and the flickering fire. He has the distinct sensation that if he does not keep hold of himself very tightly, he will break.

It takes longer than it should for him to realize that he is being spoken to, but when he sees it’s Podrick Payne he snaps immediately to attention. The boy is escorted by two armed guards, and he is breathing hard, as though he has run all the way here. Judging from the heaving of their shoulders, the guards have been chasing him.

His voice fades in mid-sentence. “... to disturb you Ser but I thought you should know right away.”

His heart skips. “Know what, Podrick? Is she awake? Or --”

“No, she hasn’t wakened yet but… They say she will live, Ser. Her color is coming back and the Maester says she is recovering. I thought that you should know.” 

He thinks “ _of course she is_ ” and “ _are you sure?_ ” and “ _oh thank the gods_ ” all at once, but out loud he says none of it, only nods. 

He thanks Podrick for bringing him the news, and allows him to return to the infirmary to stay at his Lady’s side rather than sit in a dungeon, though there will be guards to watch them both. As much for their protection as everyone else’s. 

Then Jaime makes his excuses and returns to his quarters and falls onto the bed and sleeps.


	3. Reprieve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne is on the mend, and Jaime determines what to do with her. Plus: Brienne is not a well-behaved patient.

_LADY SANSA STARK OF WINTERFELL -_

_YOUR SWORN SWORD BRIENNE OF TARTH WAS STRUCK DOWN IN DEFENSE OF RIVERRUN. I HAVE HER IN MY CARE. I TRUST THE BLACKFISH WILL INFORM YOU FURTHER, WHEN HE REACHES YOUR LOCATION._

_LORD JAIME LANNISTER_

* * *

_Lord Jaime Lannister,_

_My Uncle Brynden Tully Has Informed Me of the Siege and its Unfortunate Outcome. We Hope the Crown Will Be Merciful Towards The Tullys Who Only Wished to Protect Their Ancestral Home from Occupation. Please Confirm that Brienne of Tarth Lives And Will Be Able to Return to Aid in the Defense of Winterfell._

_Lady Sansa Stark_

* * *

_LADY SANSA -_

_LADY BRIENNE’S INJURIES WERE GRAVE BUT SHE IS RECOVERING. WE WILL REQUIRE A PRISONER IN EXCHANGE TO ENSURE HER SAFE RELEASE._

_LORD JAIME LANNISTER_

* * *

_Lord Lannister,_

_Brienne of Tarth is a Good and Noble Knight. She has no Part in the War Between Our Houses and Wished Only to Safeguard my Uncle. I Beseech You to Release Her, if There is Any Goodness in your Heart. She Has Always Spoken Very Highly Of You and so did Your Brother Tyrion._

_Lady Sansa_

* * *

_LADY SANSA-_

_YOU MISUNDERSTAND MY INTENT. GIVE ME ANYONE AND I WILL RELEASE BRIENNE TO YOU. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHO. ANY PLAUSIBLE EXCHANGE WILL DO._

_LORD JAIME LANNISTER_

* * *

_Lord Jaime,_

_In that Case, I do have Peter Baylish Here, and he is Proving a Nuisance. Perhaps we can Solve Two Problems at Once? Do You Have any Use for Littlefinger?_

_Lady Sansa_

* * *

_LADY SANSA,_

_THAT WILL DO NICELY. IF YOU CAN ARRANGE HIS TRANSPORT TO RIVERRUN, WE WILL TAKE HIM OFF YOUR HANDS. BRIENNE SHOULD BE RECOVERED ENOUGH TO TRAVEL BY THEN._

_LORD JAIME LANNISTER_

* * *

Jaime smiles as he signs this last missive, amused at the result of this correspondence. He should be easily able to release Brienne and Podrick now, with the promise of Littlefinger in exchange. Brienne is of no value to the Crown ultimately, while the Small Council will have any number of questions for the former Master Of Coin about his creative accounting. Among other things. Why Sansa Stark should want to be rid of Peter Baelish he doesn’t know - wouldn’t he be able to implicate her in Joffrey’s murder? - but he can imagine the man has been as endearing to the Starks as he has been to everyone else of late.

The time required to get Baelish to Riverrun will also be convenient. Brienne is in no condition to be moved just now, and he cannot leave her alone at Riverrun with the Freys. This way he can linger in the Riverlands long enough to ensure the exchange. Littlefinger he will want guarded closely, anyway, and he will transport the man back to King’s Landing himself. 

He then has a scribe prepare a raven to King’s Landing, informing them of the valuable prisoner exchange. His men he instructs to hold in place to allow time for the Freys to get their grip on the castle. Maybe in that time they can teach the Freys how to hold onto it properly, too. 

Bronn, who is unfortunately observant, has wondered aloud several times why Jaime is suddenly in no hurry to leave Riverrun, when before he had wanted to end the siege as quickly as possible and get back to King’s Landing. He certainly doesn’t have to do any of this in person. Doesn't he want to be back at Cersei’s side right away? Fortunately he doesn’t owe Bronn any explanations, and can task him with tedious work any time he tries to make such points.

Jaime doesn't need the reminders of the precarious position he is in. There must be no word back to Cersei of Brienne's involvement in this delay, or rumor amongst his troops of a maiden kept at Riverrun. 

He knows he has evaded a poor outcome by the skin of his teeth as it is. Riverrun is taken, a minimum of men were lost on either side, and Brienne will be fine. He has fulfilled all of his obligations, and any lingering concerns he might have over what very nearly happened can be safely ignored. 

Brienne will survive him, and he will have her safely back in the North soon enough. 

He takes the missive to the raven tower himself. When it is sent, and he has observed the raven embarking North with his own eyes, he passes back through the Keep. He takes the opportunity to check Brienne's room as he passes, as he does most days.

They have moved her into a private chamber at his request, so that she will not be bedding beside the very soldiers she had fought against. That would be inviting trouble. There is a feather mattress there with fine linens, much more comfortable than the straw mattresses in the infirmary - as is appropriate to her station. The chamber is one of the bedrooms that had once housed honored guests, and a Stark's Sworn sword and highborn lady could be considered that. He thinks perhaps Lady Catelyn bedded there when she visited her Uncle at Riverrun. Brienne will like that. He has to evict a Frey to put her there, some grand-nephew of Old Walder who had laid claim to the space, and the peach-fuzzed buffoon had been quite unhappy and quite unable to do a thing about it. Jaime takes some petty satisfaction in that.

There are guards posted at her door, and they keep a close eye on this Brienne of Tarth. His soldiers, apparently, consider her quite a dangerous prisoner, and Jaime can’t quite dissuade them of that. She did, after all, fight off a whole squadron of his men, and descriptions of her fighting prowess have made their way through the ranks. If he doesn't want to answer uncomfortable questions about how she got inside the castle, and how quickly she is going to be freed, he had better continue the armed guard. They aren't wrong, anyway. Brienne could probably take down any one of them with one hand tied, when she wakes.

The Maester and his assistant are frequently there as well, especially in the beginning, and Podrick as well, keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings. Pod has slept in that chamber most nights, leaving only when Bronn comes to collect him and get the young squire something from the kitchens. But if things are quiet, and the squire is not there, Jaime will stop inside the bedchamber.

If he is too long away, he begins to worry. It troubles him that she is not banging down his door with some demand. It is odd to have her so near and yet so quiet, and Brienne asleep is unnatural. She hardly seemed to sleep at all when they were on the road together, unwilling to let her guard slip so far. Brienne asleep in a room full of strangers is downright alarming.

She still sleeps the majority of the time, wakens only briefly and not truly. The bleeding has stopped and she seems to be recovering from the blood loss; now the Maester works to make certain infection does not set in. She has a low fever lingering, and the old man keeps her from growing too restless with dreamwine. 

So he stops at her chamber briefly, and notes that the Maester's young assistant, with his shortened chain, is dozing in his seat, and it is a good time to visit her unobserved. He slips past, feeling slightly foolish for this subterfuge. It is only to look on her and see that she is better, her color is returned, her wounds no longer bleed. He will not wake her or disturb her rest.

When he looks down at her lying in the bed he is both reassured and remorseful. Her muscular form is comforting to look upon - her broad shoulders, her thick legs, her calloused hands. The Maid of Tarth is stronger than most men, and she will recover from her wounds. Of course she will. 

The remorse floods in to replace the worry every time, as it leaves. He can almost forget, when he is not there, what he has done to her. He is good at ignoring his conscience. But looking down on her lying so still his breath sours in his chest. 

She nearly died. Fighting his men, his soldiers, on his orders. At his hands, as surely as if he had driven the sword. The flickers of pain that cross her face, the bandage across her cheek, they are because of him. 

If it had gone the other way… that is a blank space in his mind. He cannot imagine what he would have done. He supposes he would be doing all the same things he is doing now, his duties, but he cannot picture it. 

They are on opposite sides of a war, he can try to tell himself outside of this room, and such things happen. It cannot be his fault when she chose to take up her own sword and fight. But increasingly, he is struck by the thought that his younger self, who had believed in knights and honor, would have joined Brienne in that battle. Fought against the dishonorable Freys, in their ridiculous claim on Riverrun, and on behalf of the Tullys and the Blackfish, who he had always admired.

Which would make him, the man he is now, a villain. Wouldn’t it? 

He will chew on that awhile, pacing back to his own desk to return to his duties. He will come to terms with it, as he has done before. Always he has done what needs doing to protect his House, fight for his family, for Cersei. He has reasons for every choice, rational reasons. There are unfortunate side effects, sometimes, of carrying out his family's wishes. But that can't be helped.

And then whenever he sees her again, it occurs to him anew. Her injuries. Her near death. His fault. 

This time, when that now-familiar ache settles in his chest, he is struck by this thought: If he is on the opposite side of a battlefield from Brienne of Tarth, then perhaps he is fighting on the wrong side. 

That is a monumental idea, one he does not know what to do with.

Almost as though she has heard him, Brienne stirs. She does not wake, not yet; the dreamwine is too strong, and she is feverish still. But her body shifts, she curls up slightly in the bed, and a shadow of unease comes over her expression. Is she in pain? Or is she troubled with foul dreams? 

As he always does at such times, Jaime has the strange urge to touch her. Not to any particular purpose. To feel her skin under his hand. Perhaps to soothe her somehow. To smooth down her hair. To settle the thin blanket over her again, so that she will not shiver. Something to take away whatever troubles her. 

When he feels that instinct rising up again, he quickly leaves the room. As though he can leave it behind in the bed with her. Goes back to his duties, tears his thoughts away, until he feels himself again.

He will stay away until the scale tips back again to worry, and as surely as a raven returns to its roost, he will return to her.

* * *

Brienne, for her part, is not aware of these visits. She is deep asleep and dreaming.

But not peacefully. Her sleep is violent. She went down fighting and in her mind it never stopped. It goes on and on, an eternal onrush of enemy soldiers and shouting and steel, and no matter how many times she knocks them down they get back up again. She has no allies, and many people to protect, and her enemies are countless and unstoppable.

All the while she lays unconscious, she goes on fighting for her life.

When Brienne finally wakes, she is lying defenseless in a bed, surrounded by men, without her armor. She hasn’t even her clothing, only her smallclothes and the strip of cloth she uses to bind her chest. She does not recognize any of these faces looking down on her. Her bare skin prickles against their eyes. Her hand is reaching for her sword before she’s even fully awake yet. She keeps it beside her bed at night, but it’s not here.

Instead she grabs the nearest object at hand and swings it hard into the head of the first man and rolls in his direction. As soon as her bare feet touch the ground she’s gone into a defensive crouch. She grasps for something to protect herself with, breaking off a piece of wood and holding out her makeshift weapon in front of her. She’s swung it again and slapped a man across the face with it. She looks wildly around for something more suitable as she backs away from them all, getting the wall to her back. Four men standing now. She puts space between herself and them. Only one exit to this room, and it’s on the other side of them. She could simply rush through them while they are still stunned, but she does not yet trust her feet. 

“Calm down,” one of them is saying, holding his hands out to her pacifyingly.

She swipes the wood at him warningly before he can continue, and he backs away. 

Behind her, she senses movement and whirls, still holding out her improvised weapon. Yet another man is standing in the doorway.

“Seven hells, Brienne, are you still fighting?”

Brienne feels a pang of relief, even as she squints to make out his face in the dim room. She knows that voice. Everything is blurry but she knows that voice. That voice means she isn’t alone.

“Everyone get out.” He’s using his Commander voice, the one that makes her bite her lip. He also sounds a little irritated. “Don’t look at me like that, I don’t think she’s going to conquer Riverrun with a chair leg. Get out of here and stop terrorizing the poor woman.”

 _Poor woman?_ She tries to respond but it comes out as an indignant squeak, a rather unintimidating one. 

Jaime Lannister’s familiar form resolves itself as he steps into the room, dressed in his red-and-blacks, a scruff of beard growth emerging over his strong jaw. He is definitely irritated, frowning at her. “Can you stop fighting my men and let them pass? The battle’s over.” 

The battle. Riverrun. The Blackfish, she sent the Blackfish away and then...

“I thought you would have the sense to go down when someone stabs you, not stay up and invite more stabbing. Slashed and run through twice? Seven hells,” he says again, sounding considerably more put out. Then he looks past her. “What are you men still doing here? Don’t just stand there staring, leave.”

She lets the men pass around her, holding up her stick warningly. When the man in the doorway approaches her she holds it up reflexively. 

“Now, now, none of that,” he pushes her weapon aside lightly with one hand. Then he pauses. “You do know me, don’t you?”

“Ser Jaime?” She lets her hands fall slowly, her guard dropping. The surge of adrenaline that had driven her from her bed is wearing off rapidly, and already her heartbeat begins to slow.

“Oh good. For a second there I thought we were back to Kingslayer and I’d have to lose another hand to get my name back. You’re not going to hit me with that if I come closer, are you?”

“No.” She drops the chair leg to the ground and rubs at her arms reflexively. “I need clothes. Where are my clothes? My armor?”

“Nearby. But you can’t wear your armor now, you have to go back to bed.” 

A surge of foggy alarm runs through her at that thought. She can’t sleep here. She isn’t safe without her armor. 

She must have looked frightened, because Jaime’s tone of voice changes, softens. “Brienne, you’ve been very sick. You nearly died. You still have a fever.”

She does feel quite hot, truth be told, despite that she is nearly naked. When she remembers that, she lowers her arms and looks down at herself, sweaty and shaking and in only her underclothes.

“I need clothes,” she repeats, shivering.

He frowns, looking about them. “We’ll find them. Here.” He opens his black gambeson and pulls it off each arm carefully, and then drapes it around her shoulders. 

He has only a thin shirt on without it, in Lannister crimson, his arms mostly bare. She tries not to notice that and fails miserably. Her eyes fix on his forearms, flexing as they arrange the leather jacket around her.

“That’s better. Now --”

A sharp pain in her midsection doubles her over, like an ox-kick to her stomach. When her knees buckle he is there in an instant, dropped to one knee, holding her by the shoulders so that she does not topple over. 

“Ready to go back to bed now?” he says, but his voice is gentle. 

“All right,” she whispers tightly.

She slings an arm over his shoulder and he pulls her to her feet, and walks her back to the bed. Jaime levers her up and onto the bed with an arm around her waist, a touch that makes her shiver belatedly when he lets go.

She sits with her legs off the side of the bed, noticing now the bandages around her abdomen, sticky with blood. When she prods them with her fingers it aches. “Was I…?”

“Stabbed. Yes. But not before you killed four men. All at once, apparently. Which makes things rather difficult for me,” he adds, straightening to stand over her. “You’ve made quite an impression, enough that there was concern that you would be a danger to the Crown. Even in your injured state. Hence the armed guards.”

Her sluggish mind struggles to put those facts together. She was fighting the Lannister forces. Jaime’s forces. Jaime’s soldiers. Now they have her, and she has killed four men.

Jaime frowns at her midsection. "And now you've reopened the wound. I told that idiot Maester to keep giving you the dreamwine, that you'd be charging around as soon as you were awake, but he didn't like to give so much for so long... I will call him back so that he can tend your wound again."

Brienne blinks at him, a hundred questions forming in her head. Dreamwine? How long has she been sleeping? How severe are her injuries? Is Podrick all right? This looks like Riverrun, and Jaime is in his Lannister reds, and plainly in command. Then he has taken the Keep, and that means...

“Am I a prisoner?” she rasps.

He looks back at her steadily. “Only until you’re well. You and Podrick - he's fine by the way - will be released once you've recovered.”

She wraps her arms around herself more tightly, hugging his jacket to herself. This is a bad situation.

Jaime comes a step closer, and his voice is low and intimate. “You will be safe here, I promise you. If anyone lays a finger on you I will cut off their heads.”

That would be cold comfort afterwards. But there is little she can do. Already her eyelids are heavy, and her body is sapped of strength. She will need to lie down again soon. 

“Podrick will be back soon. He won’t be able to hold a battalion at bay with a chair leg, but I imagine you’ll relax enough to sleep with him around, yes?”

She would be rather more reassured by the knowledge that Jaime is near. He kept the Bloody Mummers from dishonoring her, and she can take him at his word that he will protect her now. 

But Jaime has other places to be. Podick will stay at her side, and that will be enough.

“Thank you, my lord,” she murmurs, without energy. 

He frowns at her. “I have written Lady Sansa to inform her of your situation. We are making arrangements to have you on your way. So don’t fret over what’s going to happen to you.”

She has many things to worry over now, but that isn’t one of them. “I trust you, Ser.”

Jaime’s mouth opens and then shuts itself again, without a sound. Then he nods shortly and quickly leaves the room.

She wonders if she has upset him. But not for very long. Nearly as soon as he has left, Brienne lies down on her side, hugging the soft leather of Jaime's coat around her, and goes back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please picture Sansa's ravens in a fancy cursive with big swoops and fancy capital letters. And Jaime's ravens in big block letters clumsily printed in his left hand, because he doesn't want to leave it to a scribe. 
> 
> Yes, there will be Brienne pov too, now that she's awake.


	4. Respite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne recovers from her injuries, while Jaime prepares himself to let her go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naomignome, I am abominably late in finishing my holiday gift for you and I must sincerely apologize. I'm glad at least that you got some stocking stuffers to balance me out. 
> 
> I am going to finish this story but it might take a few twists and turns first. I hope the mutual pining of this chapter is to your liking.

Bronn leans against the doorway of the Lord Commander’s chambers, where Jaime Lannister sits at his table reading a parchment. It’s an insolent sort of lean, and it means he is about to do something irritating. 

“This is all rather domestic, don’t you think?” he observes.

Jaime looks up at his hired sword from the ledger he is presently reviewing and frowns. Sometimes he thinks Bronn is determined to annoy him to a breaking point, so that he will pay the man to go away. Other times he is certain of it. 

“Am I not giving you enough to do, Ser Blackwater?” he says drolly, determined not to take the bait.

“Frankly, no.” Bronn folds his arms in front of his chest and looks not at all inclined to move along. “Used to be, I could at least stretch my legs by whipping you at swordfighting, but you don’t have time for even that anymore. Too busy playing Come Into My Castle with your Lady friend.”

Jaime’s voice takes on a distinct edge as he rolls up the latest count of provisions. “Careful, Bronn.” 

“Careful yourself. You think nobody’s noticed you’re always visiting her, but you’re not exactly subtle about it. When the Lannister Lord Commander takes all his meals with a Stark sworn sword? People talk.” 

He knows it. He has tried to be discreet, but there is really no stealthy way to visit your own prisoner. It’s been two weeks since Brienne awoke from her long sleep, and he’s aware that his men have been watching him, noting how often he goes to see her, how long he stays. What they might think about it, he doesn’t know. He would prefer not to.

“Are you still sore at me for turning down the invitation to the Frey banquet?” Jaime smirks at the sellsword, hoping to distract him. “Might you have been hoping for some female companionship there?”

Bronn agrees immediately, “Damn right I was! First real event since I got myself jumped up to a Lord, and you wouldn’t even take a day’s ride to the Neck. My cock’s going to dry up and blow away from disuse!”

“A Frey affair,” Jaime dismisses the idea with some contempt. “Listening to Walder Frey ramble on about the respect due his house is not anyone’s idea of an enjoyable evening. And the women there would all be Freys, Walder’s overeager granddaughters. You didn’t miss much, believe me.”

“Look, just because you’ve got your mistress hidden away in a castle--”

“Stop.” Jaime darkens considerably, glares at the sellsword with a warning expression.

“All I’m saying,” Bronn puts up his hands, “is you’re getting awfully comfortable here playing house. You the Lord of the Castle, and her the Lady, and the rest of us vassals pretending we don’t know what you’re doing.”

At last he lets the parchment settle to the table forgotten and gives Bronn his full attention. “Nobody’s playing anything. And I don’t care about your disapproval.”

“Disapprove, nothing! I fully approve!” Bronn exclaims. “This is the first time since I met you that you haven’t been a miserable bastard every hour of the day. Hells, you’re downright cheerful!”

Jaime is a little thrown by this description. “When am I miserable?” he asks quizzically.

“You still got the emotional range of a fencepost, yeah, but you’re not brooding all the time. You’re nicer to the troops, you’re actually paying attention to your job, your jokes are actually funny and we all get a break from hearing about your damn sister all the time. I’m getting used to you actually being somewhat pleasant to be around. You know what I’m NOT looking forward to?” Bronn walks closer and puts his palms on Jaime’s desk. “When the Starks get here with that Baelish bloke, and you trade him for Brienne and end up more miserable than ever.”

“You do know that’s the entire idea, right?” Jaime informs him sardonically. “Otherwise I have no reason to let her and Podrick go free, after they raised arms against me.”

“Exactly. It’s the dumbest thing you’ve done in ages.” Now Bronn is the one who looks contemptuous, and he gestures emphatically as he explains. “If you’d just let them bring somebody unimportant, you could have balked at the trade and kept her. Instead you’re getting fucking Littlefinger, so you have to trade. Now you just get a few more days before you have to send her away.”

Right, that. He has been avoiding thinking about the prisoner exchange. Like any of his more distressing duties, he would rather do it first and think about it later.

"I don’t know what you want me to do.” He pushes back his chair from the desk and rubs at his chin. “I can’t just keep her.”

“Sure you can. Just keep playing Lord and Lady for real. Take her up to Casterly Rock and set her up there. It’s not like anyone would be surprised at this point.” 

Jaime boggles at him, dumbfounded by the idea. “You want me to marry my prisoner and take her to my ancestral home?”

“Why fucking not?”

The commander’s face passes through several conflicting emotions before settling on merriment. “For one, I’m not going to just carry off a woman like a spoil of war. That particular woman would probably stab me with a dessert fork for even thinking of it. For another, my House would probably disown me.”

“Your dad would have done cartwheels to have you marrying anyone. You told me that yourself.”

The image of his father doing cartwheels is amusing enough, but Jaime quickly stops smiling. “True, but he’s dead. And I’ll marry no one but Cersei.”

Bronn’s eyebrows lift into the same incredulous look he has gotten every time he mentions his sister. “Sure about that?” 

“How many times must I explain it? I love her. We belong together.”

“Right, right,” Bronn dismisses him, resuming his impudent lean against the doorframe. “She'll be marrying you any day now. And it won’t bother you one bit to send Brienne back to the North, where you’ll probably never see her again.”

Jaime doesn’t quite have an answer for that.

“Just think it over, Lannister. While there’s still time.”

With that, Bronn leaves him there to stew over it, and Jaime stares after him, bothered. 

The man is annoying, but he has a point. It might be for the best to put some distance between himself and his prisoners, for these remaining days. It would be better not to be quite so used to each other when they leave this place.

He taps the end of his quill against the desk, idly. It’s midday. Each day he has taken the opportunity around this time to stroll past Brienne’s room, and observe her captivity. He watches her cautiously exercising in her quarters, trying to rebuild her strength. He will interrupt her at it, and they will converse for a time. He brings her what news he has gleaned from the day’s ravens, interesting reports from his soldiers. It is a little bit ceremonial, this visit, decorous and proper and not very long. The Maester is usually present, and several guards. Podrick will be nearby and waiting for his time to train with Brienne, once Jaime has left. 

Later on, in the evening, he will stop there again, and stay longer. Perhaps take his supper there, to ensure she gets a good meal. There is no one observing them in the evening, though there are guards outside. Two lieutenants he trusts have the night shift, and they keep their distance when he closes the door. Podrick is in his own quarters, or galavanting off somewhere with Bronn. Then he and Brienne can sit together, and be more relaxed. In the evenings she will speak more, tell him about her journey North, about Podrick’s training. He will tell her funny stories about Bronn, about the Kingsguard, about Tyrion when they were children. If he is very amusing he will get a smile from her, one she quickly hides behind her hands. Those flashes of a smile, brief as they are, warm him from head to toe.

He awaits both of these visits with what he must admit is some amount of eagerness. Even now he is growing restless, ready to abandon his work and go to see her. 

Instead he summons his scribe and dictates another letter to Mace Tyrell, urging him to be patient until the Sparrows can be pacified, and not to do anything rash. Then his scouts come in to give reports from the countryside, and then he goes in search of the Frey commander, to tell him where to send his men.

He puts Brienne out of his mind for a time. To prove to himself that he can.

The sun is dipping in the sky when he next finds himself alone again, walking the halls of Riverrun, and he congratulates himself for avoiding distraction. He does not, after all, absolutely have to see her. It is simply something he has been doing, and will stop doing very soon, and it will not be difficult at all. 

Bronn, he knows, wants him to stop traveling around on the King’s business and settle somewhere so that he can get his castle. He will propose any ludicrous idea he can think of for that. It is nothing that he should take seriously.

Jaime exits out onto the battlements of Riverrun, to a particular spot he has found along the Western wall where he can watch the sun set over the water. It is a quiet stretch of the Keep, where the noise of daily life is drowned by the river into a distant hum. The sun touches down upon the Red Fork and sets the moat ablaze with color, and Jaime stands there watching it in quiet contemplation.

It is true that he does not look forward to sending Brienne away. 

The thought of that has been lingering like an unpleasant itch at the back of his mind. He will have no more excuse to see her again after she goes free, and if he does they are likely to be trying to kill one another.

He has not forgotten the awful panic of those hours when he did not know if Brienne was alive or dead, and how perfectly intolerable the possibility of living in a world without her had been.

What the hell will he do if they find each other again on the opposite sides of a battle? 

And what will he do if they don’t? If all the days and months stretch into years and she has forgotten him, and he has forgotten what it was to have someone who really and truly believed in him? That fate too seems insufferable, if less traumatic.

Parting from her again will be difficult. Seeing her go is its own particular kind of pain, and it hurts like nothing else does. It feels like losing another body part. Not one he can name. He can’t identify it, he just knows something is missing.

It will happen again in a few days. It must. He has been relieved to know there is a way out, that she will go back to the North and be safer. And still as the time approaches, a dull apprehension grows and grows. He knows exactly what pain is coming and when, and still he will be unprepared for it. It will take him by surprise somehow, in some new way. 

For once unobserved, Jaime leans against the balustrade and shuts his eyes. Lets the sounds of dusk and water soothe his troubled heart.

The fact of it is… and he was never going to admit this to Bronn, or to anyone, ever… but there had been a moment, years ago, when he had made an agreement with his father to take over Casterly Rock, marry, and produce heirs. And he had thought -- briefly, outrageously, comically -- of mentioning Brienne as the potential bride. 

Bronn’s right on that part -- at that moment his father would have forgotten entirely to disapprove of her. He had been pushing for so many years for Jaime to disavow the white cloak and take a wife, and by then he would not have been choosy. 

It had not been an unpleasant thought, bringing Brienne to Casterly Rock. There was no other woman he would have considered, really. 

The whole deal soured right away, of course. Tyrion had blown the trial, and then killed their father, making any agreement moot. But if he hadn’t… 

Jaime indulges the thought, briefly. It would have been two years ago now. She would be fully installed in the Keep where he had grown up, and he would be its Lord. Perhaps she would have borne a child by now. A very tall, very blonde child, with remarkable blue eyes. 

Brienne the Lady of Casterly Rock. He smiles with amusement at the thought of that, and looks out again over the water. She is so unlike the rest of House Lannister that it would have been a farce. Hilarious. All of those tiny, delicate ladies and hulking Brienne towering over all of them. Him running the Westerlands, her keeping the castle in trousers, teaching their sons to swordfight. They would have been an unconventional marriage to say the least. 

It would have been… very much like it is now, in fact. Jaime taking meetings, dictating letters and reading reports, Brienne training and teaching Podrick, and then supping together in a quiet room where they can enjoy one another’s company. Perhaps this is a glimpse at another life.

It’s a silly fantasy, and now he has thought of it he has a feeling he will use it to amuse himself from time to time. A parallel existence he might have had, one that, deep down, he suspects he would have enjoyed.

In the end, when the sun has disappeared behind the trees, Jaime gives in. He turns away from the water and goes to see her again.

* * *

Brienne’s days at Riverrun are strange. 

She has her own room, and it does not feel much like imprisonment. It is a finely outfitted quarters - really too fine for her. The bed is too soft after so long sleeping on the ground, and the furniture looks so plush and delicately crafted that she is too uncomfortable to sit on anything, worried she will break it. She does appreciate the warm fire, and the space to move around in, once she is reliably on her feet. She is well fed and cared for, given fresh clothes and linens for the bed. The Maester comes in frequently to check her wounds and change her bandages, and there is a guard outside her door, but she can do as she pleases within these walls.

Podrick comes and goes. He sleeps in another guest quarters, and is not as closely watched. Plainly they have decided her squire is not a danger. 

Brienne, on the other hand, is not permitted to leave her fine quarters, and she finds the Lannister soldiers regarding her with both suspicion and something like awe. It feels similar to the reverence they have for their Commander, and perhaps it is his clear regard for her that they are responding to. They must marvel at how this strange woman has earned such a comfortable prison.

Today, for example, she notes that her guards are as expectant as she is at midday for Lord Commander Lannister to make an appearance. He always comes at this time, and she catches the young soldiers watching for him down the halls. She will continue in her exercises, then, until he arrives. She can tell when he is coming by their expressions, the way they snap to attention in his presence. But today it doesn’t happen - Jaime doesn’t come. The sun outside her window passes over the meridian and begins its journey down, and the Lord Commander does not appear.

So Brienne keeps exercising. She needs to build her strength. She ties off the sleeves of her overshirt to expose her arms and allow her to move more freely, and practices at her swordforms until she is dripping with sweat. 

She does not worry about his lateness. Surely some duty or other has detained him. 

Jaime had brought her a wooden sword and shield only a few days after she awoke, at her request, and at first she could hardly lift them. For the first few days she would manage only a few maneuvers and be so fatigued at the attempt she would need to lie down to rest. But she kept at it, multiple times a day, until she could reliably train again, and take up her sessions with Podrick too. Now she is much closer to recovered, but how will she fare with a real sword and armor too? She must keep rebuilding her sword arm.

Podrick asks her about him, later that afternoon when he comes to look in on her. Right when she has finally tired and sat down to rest, and accepted that he is not coming today. 

Brienne is unfortunately snappish in reply. She is not his keeper, nor is he hers. And Jaime is under no obligation to supervise her or give her audience -- he is a Lord and Commander, and she is a prisoner.

Pod looks contrite, and a little perplexed, and he does not ask again. 

It lingers in her mind, though. He has already spent more time than is really warranted in her company, more than she had anticipated he would. She should not have begun to expect him. He had not promised her anything of the sort. And of course he has been overseeing Riverrun all along, and supervising the rebuilding of the Keep, and he must have much else to do. He would have gone away to the Frey banquet, if he did not need to remain at Riverrun in case the Starks arrive with Littlefinger. Of course, he could have stayed there only briefly and returned, and she suspects this was a convenient excuse for an affair he wanted little to do with. But the point is, he has other priorities, and it is merely convenient that she is so nearby. 

It may be that he will not visit her anymore. Surely they have exchanged all of the information they reasonably could. And she is not a lady of social graces who might have passed his time pleasantly. No, she is awkward and retiring and sullen, and he must have been bored with her company. She must expect that he will not return, and so avoid disappointment. 

She decided on this course, and not much later, just after sunset, he appears. 

He arrives with Podrick and the rat-faced sellsword Bronn, and they are conversing amiably - perhaps he went to collect her squire first. They tumble into her quarters with barely a hello, Jaime telling the boy the story of how he had been knighted by Arthur Dayne. They settle onto the couch and settee and she seems quite inconsequential to their being there.

Brienne has heard this tale before, and though she would not mind hearing it again, she is unnerved by this change of habit, and annoyed by Jaime’s casualness. She takes up her sword and runs through her exercises again while they are conversing.

Jaime trails off in the middle of the story, distracted by her activity. He seems to be staring at her arms, and she discreetly checks her sleeves to see if something might be wrong with them. 

“I thought you ran the sword forms at mid-day,” he says to her.

“I did.” She answers him crisply, and keeps working. 

There is some sort of exchange between the three of them, and they stand. Jaime’s man Bronn is saying something about needing Podrick’s help, and he is quickly agreeing to it. 

Bronn will often grab Podrick up to help with some task or other, or to sup in the great hall. In fact, she has noticed, Pod seems to vanish in this way every time Jaime Lannister makes an appearance. She tries to catch her squire’s eye, silently convince him to stay and help to hold up conversation, but each time Bronn or Jaime suggests some activity for Podrick and the boy jumps at it without argument or delay and abandons her. It is beginning to feel deliberate. 

She is no more successful this time - Pod smiles at her encouragingly, but he does not stay. He ambles out the door and shuts it behind him.

Then she is left alone with Jaime. And it is suddenly awkward. 

She doesn’t know why it should be so. When they were at King’s Landing together she had walked with him in the gardens, and it had been fine. Normal. He teased her and told jokes and she had rebuffed him and tried not to laugh, and it had been fine. But in this room it has been different -- and not in the manner of the formal and knightly exchange they had outside Riverrun in the camp. Here they are relaxed and informal, and long silences open up between them like pitfalls. There is no reason for it.

No, that’s a lie. Brienne knows one thing that has changed, or gotten worse to be more accurate. There is a saying on Tarth that absence makes a heart grow fonder, but she thinks now that it applies even more to the baser instincts. The fact of it is, Brienne’s already unreasonable attraction to the man has been steadily increasing in his absence.

The man grows exponentially more handsome every time she sees him. When she came upon him in the Lannister camp the sight of him had stolen her breath away, and the effect has not lessened with the days at Riverrun. Each time she thinks he must have reached the peak of his charisma, the next day will render him even more breathtaking. He will make some new expression, or she will catch sight of him in a new light, and her skin will grow hot and she will forget whatever she had been about to say. 

He lounges on the chaise with one arm across the back, his green eyes studying her lazily. His formal words carry a gently mocking tone, a kind of self-parody. “I apologize, Lady Brienne, that I could not come sooner today. I was unfortunately detained.”

She is stern with him in return. “I think perhaps you should have been detained longer. ”

He never takes that personally, when she is sour. He seems to find it charming, and pours on his own charm in return, grinning and raising his eyebrows at her. “I do believe you missed me.”

She fumbles her wooden sword, and has to circle around and start her maneuver over again.

He laughs and leans back against her couch, looking relaxed. “You should not overtire yourself. You will only need to be able to ride with the Starks in a fortnight, not defeat them in battle.”

“I am not overtired.” She chews her lip looking at him, and then quickly looks away.

She is doing a lot of that lately - biting her lip, and wringing her hands, and inwardly cursing herself for being so very, very transparent about how very, very good-looking the man is. And why must he insist on coming around in his Commander’s uniform, and not simple everyday clothing? In Riverrun he is always in command, she knows, but that red and gold Lannister armor suits him far too well to be at all fair to mere mortals, and there is no justification whatsoever to wear it to her quarters. Surely even his enemies must surrender when they see him in it. And the layers beneath it are even worse, leathers hugging every inch of his lean, muscular form. He is frustratingly, distractingly, devastatingly attractive, and he is getting very close to her on a regular basis and it’s making her grouchy. 

Instead she tries to focus on her practice sword, and the thrusting spin maneuver that has been vexing her. She does the move several times more, faster each time. Her timing is off. It is not as smooth as she wants, she does not stop her turn in the right place.

“This should be easy. It’s a simple move,” Brienne huffs, exasperated. Her abdomen doesn’t hurt when she moves anymore, but she feels tired and clumsy. 

“Try doing it backwards,” Jaime says, sardonically, waving his golden hand.

On a moment’s impulse, Brienne swaps the wooden sword to her left hand and tries again, and almost immediately trips over her own feet. She wanted to lead with her right foot, but realized too late that her weight should be to the left, and her next step sends her listing over to the wrong side, off balance. She ends up stumbling into a wardrobe, and is greeted with a merry peal of laughter from Jaime.

Brienne swaps the sword back to her right hand, blushing furiously, and goes about resetting herself. Her face goes hot, and her shoulders hunch. “I started on the wrong foot,” she mumbles, and Jaime interrupts her, rises up to his feet still laughing. 

“No, no, it wasn’t so bad -- it was your first try -- it’s only that you’ve just validated two years of my stumbling around.” He touches her shoulder briefly. “If you could have seen my first spars with Bronn, you would have laughed yourself silly.”

Brienne lowers her sword, still feeling the touch of his hand on her shoulder. “Then you’ve been practicing with your off hand?”

“A bit.” 

She offers him the wooden sword, and he executes the move left-handed quite smoothly. Step and lunge, pivot and swing into an attacker from behind. It looks quite easy for him now, but she imagines from her brief attempt that even this simple maneuver must have been difficult to learn. It would be many years of instinct and training to reverse, and do a different way instead, for a basic swordform that had once come to him so effortlessly. She is impressed. 

Jaime hands it back to her, turning it over his wrist until the pommel points to her, and the blade at himself. And again she remembers that she is a prisoner, and he should not be so cavalier about handing her weapons. 

“At this point you’re training in errors,” he points out, when she takes it from him. Then he collapses back onto the chaise. “You’re tired and frustrated, and that won’t improve without rest.”

She works at it a little bit more before she acknowledges the point, and tosses aside her sword to join him on the couch. 

They settle in silence there a moment, Jaime with one arm sprawled in her direction along the back, his head leaning over to the same side. Brienne sitting forward, almost primly, knees together.

“You will be ready to ride soon then?” he muses idly. “You seem hardy enough.”

Brienne blurts out, “You seem in an awful hurry to get me out of Riverrun.”

Jaime laughs again. “I’m in a hurry to get _myself_ out of Riverrun, and I can hardly leave you here alone with the Freys. Not when I got you into this mess.”

“How so?” Brienne looks at him quizzically. “I believe I came to Riverrun of my own accord.”

He concedes that. “The injuries came of Lannister steel, however. I deserve some fault for that.”

She shakes her head at him. “I don’t blame you.”

Jaime looks as though he would like to tell her that she should. But instead he is contemplative again, studying her. He seems to be sketching her form in his mind, into his memory. Though what he would want it for, she cannot say.

“Have you ever thought about what you will do after the wars?” he asks her, out of nowhere. 

“I try not to,” she says lightly.

“Surely you’ve given it some thought,” he presses. “Are you at Winterfell for the long term? Or will you be returning to your father on Tarth?”

She looks down at her hands. It is not a cheerful subject for her. “I suppose I will have to return eventually,” she says. 

“You don’t sound like you’re looking forward to it.”

“I expect neither of us are,” she sighs. To his quizzical expression, she adds, “I am ill-suited to my role as his heir. It will be a happy reunion, I have no doubt, but we will both quickly remember why I was eager to leave in the first place.” 

He nods. “It’s a small island, for a young lady of your talents. Not much sword-fighting to do there, I imagine.”

“True.” She wants to leave it there. But the word hangs there between them, and the more she thinks on it, the more insufficient it seems. Rarely does Brienne offer any more information than she is required, but for once she cannot help herself. “But that wasn’t why I left.”

She turns to him. Suddenly the truth of it weighs heavily on her, and there are things she has never spoken aloud. It may be that this is the only time she will ever speak them, to the one person who has ever made an effort to understand her.

“I was a shame to my House,” she says.

“We have that in common,” he jokes.

“Very funny. No, you carry the Lannister name on a banner, you are a leader of men. If my father had a son like you, he would not be spending his twilight years worrying over the demise of our house and the future of Tarth. But his other children died, and for the future of our House he was left only me. Neither son nor daughter. Something in between.”

She trails off. Jaime is listening to her closely, and he looks interested. For once he does not interrupt. 

She takes a deep breath and starts again.

“I was ill-suited to the role of Heir. I tried to do all of it - the formal dinners, the ladies’ pursuits, holding court - but I could only embarrass myself. It was like trying to hammer a nail with sand. Our bannerman recommended I be kept out of sight, but Father refused them. He tried, he tried to show me the proper way, to make adjustments for my deficits, but we could only exhaust each other. He would never say so, but I suspect it was a relief to him when I left. It certainly was to me.”

Jaime looks uncommonly serious.

“Then we are both a disappointment to our fathers,” he says, surprising her. “Mine considered me a failure to the day he died. At least you have some time yet to get through to yours.”

“A failure?” Brienne is perplexed. “But you are a knight, and a knight of the Kingsguard, the highest of honors…”

“Father was never much keen on knighthood and honor. He would much rather I had stayed his heir, become a Lord, and set about accumulating power and riches. And making more Lannisters, of course.”

“Of course.” That much is quite familiar. Brienne bites her lip. “Then he was not proud when you were knighted?”

“Certainly not. He was horrified. Especially when I joined the Kingsguard.” Jaime confesses it like a private joke between them, leaning in close. “He thought we were all fools for renouncing our Houses. Said I had no ambition, was shirking my responsibility, and the like. He was hardly alone in that, the rest of my House was equally baffled, every one of them.”

Brienne cannot imagine how that would have felt. It would be the proudest moment of her life, to be knighted. For no one to be happy for you in your moment of triumph… the thought of it makes her a bit sad.

“Where did you get your ambitions then, for knighthood? If your family did not encourage them?”

“You know, I don’t know.” Jaime squints, and his expression grows distant. “Certainly no one I can remember would have suggested it to me. I was meant to take up the blade for show, not a vocation - my real training was to become a Lord. But it never interested me half so much as swordplay. ”

He thinks, and then nods at some distant memory.

“All I can think of is the stories I would read to my little brother. He wanted a story every night whenever I was at Casterly. He’d have the books from the study and beg me to read them. He liked the tales about knights and dragons and the Age of Heroes best of all - and I did too, of course. Every night I’d tell him some tale about bravery and valor, and later I would go to bed myself with my head full up with knights and battles. I suppose I must have talked myself into it.”

“You can be very convincing,” she tells him, straight-faced. 

He looks pleased at that, and then grows cynical again. “Of course, if I had known then what sort of knight I would make, I might have taken up fishing instead. Or carpentry.”

She tries to convince him otherwise. “The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard is the most honored knight in the land…”

“-which I am no longer,” he interrupts. “And anyway, it is not the way I am remembered to anyone. To those who believe in honor I will be the Kingslayer until I die. For the rest too, but those people will be even less impressed by any efforts otherwise. It seems I am too knightly to be a good Lannister, and too Lannister to be a proper knight. And so the world is perpetually disappointed in me. If I could tear myself in two, and make one Kingsguard and one head of my House, I think everyone would be happier.”

“I would not,” she says softly. “I think it would not be you, and that would be a shame.”

He looks at her. Somehow he puts so much action into that, the looking. He seems to be absorbing something from the sight of her, and giving something back as well. 

“I would not have you be any different, either,” he says.

She sniffs at that, quietly. 

“You don’t believe it,” he observes. 

“It is kind to say. But as I am, I cannot be what my father needs. I have found another use for myself, but once that is over, there will not be much left for me.”

Jaime looks slightly alarmed at that. 

“Surely there will be a place in your father’s household - or you could start your own. The Evenstar can arrange a marriage for you--”

Now it is her turn to interrupt. “-- he tried. But it’s impossible. I am not marriageable.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the trueborn daughter of a noble lord. You’re very marriageable.” He gestures in the air, emphatically. “Yes, you’re an unusual woman--”

She pushes that aside. “There is no need to spare my feelings. You yourself saw what I am when first we met, and said as much.”

He fumbles his reply. Which is strange; in all the time she has known him, she has never heard him trip over words like this. It is oddly endearing, she thinks, if a bit confusing. 

“I didn’t -- I was only... I was being an ass, Brienne. You should know better than to take me seriously.”

“Oh, I do,” she says drolly. “But you had the right of it. I’m ugly.”

His arms drop, and he frowns. “You aren’t. Don’t say such things.” 

She smiles weakly. “It isn’t a matter of confidence, or hurt feelings. It is a matter of fact.”

“But it all depends on how you look at it. Beauty is a matter of opinion.”

“But it isn’t. I appreciate what you are saying, but it only tells me you don’t understand. You can’t.” Brienne stares right through the wall, trying to describe something she has lived with all her life long, but never quite been able to explain. “I was made wrong. Or I grew that way, I don’t know why. I don’t know what I could have done to deserve it. I was a young girl, and then I was a strange girl, and then I was something else entirely. Something nobody wanted to be around.”

Now he looks angry. “Who told you that?”

“It doesn’t matter who. It doesn’t matter who’s looking, or if no one is looking at all. I am still as ugly alone as I am amongst other women, it is only more obvious then. I can pretend it isn’t so, I can try not to care, but it will not change my features, nor will it affect what happens when I go out into the world.”

“What happens?” he asks, after a long pause. Even though he surely must know the answer. “People have said cruel things?”

“At times, but that isn’t the worst of it. It’s all of them, everyone, even the ones who do not speak of it. No matter who I meet, for the rest of my life, the first thing they are going to see is this. This body.” She looks down at herself, and frowns. “In full armor it means I am a brute, and I can use that. But as soon as my face is uncovered, I become a monster. They will pity me or loathe me or simply find me confusing. My face, my shoulders, my height -- it’s all wrong. If my face were sweeter it would not matter that I fight with a sword, and if I had more of a woman’s body it would not be so tragic to have a face like mine - I would be plain, and a plain woman can make a place for herself. But not me. I am ugly. I am an ugly woman, and that is the most important thing about me, and always will be. If I were a man it would not matter, but I am not, and that is exactly the point. I am a failed woman, a mistake.”

“A mistake,” he repeats faintly.

“Yes. So you see, I could not possibly marry. No one could love or wish to bed me, and I won’t make them. I would be a punishment for any husband, and I will not take part in that. I would rather be alone.”

When Jaime speaks next, his voice is strange. “You think that no one has loved you?”

“Nor will they. But it is all right,” she reassures him. “I have known it all my life, and I have accepted it. I do not lie to myself that it will ever change, or that the right man will feel differently. Even an ugly man does not want an ugly woman. There is nothing lower or less desirable.“

She trails off, looking at him searchingly. Something is happening to him that she cannot understand. 

Jaime looks shocked. Something more than shocked. Appalled, certainly, but something else as well… stricken, perhaps, is the word. 

Whatever it is, it is better than pity. Empathy, perhaps. Maybe she has finally put it to the right words, and he feels a little bit of the pain she has carried for so long. But still she does not want his pain. Her own is enough. 

“Anyway,” she looks down at her lap, “I have wasted enough of your time with my complaining, Ser Jaime.”

He is unusually quiet, and when he does speak up, his voice is strangely soft. “You haven’t wasted my time. I enjoy spending it with you.”

She has to work to master her expression then, and try to conceal the blush that scorches her cheeks. 

“I think I will leave you to rest, though.” He stands up a little too quickly, and stops himself long enough let his good hand drift onto her shoulder again. A light, cautious touch. “You should not push yourself so hard, Brienne.”

Then he rushes out of the room, as though he cannot bear to share it with her a moment longer.

* * *

He storms into his study, seething and gritting his teeth.

Brienne. She thinks… how could she think….? 

With a single movement he strikes at his table, knocks a golden lion statue and an assortment of quills to the floor. 

It’s not enough. He hits it again. The wood splinters under the blow, his golden hand hanging loosely from his wrist now, and his stump aching from the impact. Better. 

He is furious. Furious at the people who stared, the ones who said cruel things, and the ones who have put these awful thoughts into her head. If he could he would strike them all down. 

But it would be a terribly short campaign, of course. He would have to start with himself.

Again, harder: a sharp, shearing sound of wood cracking. He’s making a crescent-shaped wound in his desk the shape of his fist. The pain shoots up his right arm in sharp spikes. 

He said awful things to her. Now he knows she has not forgotten them. She has only added his words to the rest, and adopted them as her own. 

He falls into his seat and holds his head. His throat tightens painfully. 

She thinks that no one could ever love her. No one ever.

He wants to tell her how wrong she is. How terribly, ludicriously wrong. 

But how can he? What could he possibly say?

 _Of course someone will love you someday._ She won’t believe it. She has never believed it before, and from him it will sound false. 

_Someone already loves you. I promise you that you are loved_. And she would say, “who?” And what could he say?

 _You are loved, Brienne. I love you. I have loved you for a long time. But I am still going to trade you back to the Starks and never see you again, because it’s where you belong, and I’ll go back to King’s Landing, because it’s where I belong._ True as it is, what good would that do? What possible good?

Jaime sits there long into the evening, cursing himself. When the messenger brings an urgent Raven, approaching his mutilated desk hesitantly, he sends the man away and sets the message aside. No news could matter just now.

He thought he knew. He thought she could be sensitive, that it hurt her to hear insults. He did not know that she believed these things of herself as well. Such untrue and awful things. How could this be? The most lovable person, the most endearing and good and worthy, and she thinks she is a mistake. It makes him sick to think on it. 

And when she told him, he could only flee in confusion. All of the words knotted up in his throat and he could not speak them. If he could cut out his heart and show it to her, it would be easier. That would begin to say it. Short of that, he can do nearly nothing.

Perhaps he can write her, after she is gone. If he takes his time, he could find the right words to make her see what he sees, when he sees her. When she is safely away, and will not ask him to prove it, and fail her. 

Perhaps he should try to tell her anyway. That he loves her. Would it do her any good to know? If one person has loved her, then will she believe it could happen again? It is the one gift that he could give her now, before he sets her free.

But would it help her? Would it really? Jaime Lannister’s love has never helped anyone. It is no gift, not in itself. He has twisted himself until he is wrung dry doing what he can for his house and his family, but simply loving them has never been enough. 

He sits a long time with his heart in his throat, grappling with regret. If there is something he could do to change her mind, he would do it. She should not feel this way even a day longer, if he could stop it. But most likely he cannot. In only two days she will be leaving. He cannot do anything for a lifetime of pain in two days. 

There is still Casterly Rock. And the Kingsguard has been dissolved - he has no vows left to uphold. He could make the offer. That might mean something, even if she turned him down. She would not want to be a Lannister, of course. He knows she has a low opinion of his house. But it would mean something, the asking. That someone wanted to. 

And if she said yes… his whole life would be upended, but…

He can picture it. Lord and Lady of the Rock. He would have all the time in the world to convince her then. And he could hold onto this feeling, this peaceful feeling she gives him that he has been grasping onto so tightly, and does not want to let go of. He could forget about all of this, the Crown’s business, the Riverlands, the Freys, the Kingsguard, all of the things he has done. He could just be with Brienne. All the time. Forever.

He could love her. Really love her. Make her his Lady, be her Lord. That would be someone he could like, the Lord to her Lady. It could be sweet. 

But it’s impossible. He belongs to another. And she would not want to share him. Anything he can tell Brienne will come with that disclaimer, and therefore anything he tells her will be useless.

Around and around it goes. Until he is exhausted, and no nearer to a solution. 

Jaime reads the urgent raven only after the candles have burned down and a servant comes to light another, when he has calmed himself enough to think of anything else. 

He means to distract himself, to try to clear his mind. 

He knows an urgent raven could be bad news, but he does not imagine it will be world-shaking.

He is wrong.

The news this missive has brought him is worse than he could ever have guessed - so terrible that as he reads it, he stops breathing altogether, and he does not remember to inhale until his lungs are screaming at him for air. 

When he is finished he stares at the last line until the letters have burned into his vision. Four words, written behind his eyes. Then the parchment falls from his fingers and his mind goes entirely blank, and if he had not been already seated he might have fallen to the ground in shock.

This is what the raven says.

  
  


> **THE SEPT AT BAELOR WAS DESTROYED IN AN EXPLOSION OF WILDFIRE. ALL** **INSIDE INCLUDING QUEEN MARGAERY AND THE HIGH SEPTON PERISHED.**
> 
> **KING TOMMEN I HAS DIED. IN HIS PLACE THE QUEEN REGENT WILL ASCEND THE THRONE. THE CORONATION OF CERSEI I, FIRST OF HER NAME, WILL TAKE PLACE IN A FORTNIGHT’S TIME.**
> 
> **LONG LIVE THE QUEEN.**


End file.
